The gross domestic product (GDP) in South China's Guangdong Province is expected to reach 2.58 trillion yuan this year (US$329.67 billion), an increase of 14 percent from a year earlier, said provincial governor Huang Huahua in Guangzhou on Monday.

Guangdong's gross domestic product rose 14.1 percent year-on-year to hit 2.34 trillion yuan (US$299 billion) during the first eleven months of this year.

Huang Huahua, governor of South China's Guangdong Province, gestures at a press conference in Guangzhou, capital of the province, December 18, 2006. [chinadaily.com.cn]

The average yearly GDP growth rate in the province from 1979 to 2005 is 13.7 percent. The year 1979 marks the time when China began to adopt the policy of reform and opening up to the outside world. Guangdong's GDP growth rate is 4.1 percentage points higher than the national average and over four times that of the international average, Huang said at a press conference.

Guangdong's GDP reached 223.66 trillion yuan (US$273 billion) last year, surpassing Hong Kong Special Administrative Region and Singapore, previously two of the strongest economies in Asia. The figure also represents US$65.50 less than that of Taiwan, whose GDP stood at US$323.4 billion last year.

"It will take about three years for Guangdong to catch up with or surpass Taiwan in terms of GDP," said Huang.

Gungdong's GDP grows by more than US$30 billion a year, while Taiwan's grows by US$10 billion a year, Li Huiwu, deputy director of the provincial government's development research center, said last week.

The governor admitted there are existing problems which have caused great concern about the province's development in the past such as unbalanced economic development between cities and rural areas, the fact that social development has lagged behind economic development and environmental pollution.

Huang promised that the provincial administration will speed up its efforts to turn Guangdong, dubbed as "the factory of the world", into a people-oriented, environmentally friendly and harmonious province in the 11th Five-Year-Plan period (2006-10).

Guangdong raised up to 113.3 billion yuan in fixed assets investment in rural areas in the province during the first ten months of this year, up 39.5 percent year-on-year and 29.7 percentage points higher than in urban areas, he said.

Governor of South China's Guangdong Province Huang Huahua (second from right), gestures at a press conference in Guangzhou, capital of the province, December 18, 2006. [chinadaily.com.cn]

The improvement of the environment is equally important for the sustainability of economic development, said Huang, adding that whether Guangdong can realize the sustainability of its economic development in the long run depends on the improvement of its environment, he said.

"Officials at different levels in the province's 21 cities have been given energy-saving targets and performance measures in environment protection. These two factors will be taken into account when evaluating their administrative performance," said Chen Bing, director of the provincial economy and trade committee, at the press conference. "They were required to sign a responsibility agreement last Friday."

To lower energy consumption and improve the environment, Guangdong has been highlighting high-tech industries and the service sector, encouraging independent innovation and existing enterprises to revamp equipment with energy-saving devices. In the meantime, the province has placed strict controls on heavy energy-consuming industries and some of them have been forced to close down said Chen.

Guangdong, the economic powerhouse of China, has continuously had the lowest energy consumption per 10,000 yuan (US$1,233) GDP among other regions in the country from last year to the first half of this year, Huang said.

The province lowered the emissions of two key pollutants, sulphur dioxide and chemical oxygen demand, to 6,000 tons and 19,000 tons respectively in the first half of this year, representing a difference of 1.1 percent and 2.9 percent over the same period a year earlier. While emissions of the two pollutants in China increased by 3.7 percent and 4.2 percent as a whole, Huang said.

By the end of October, the province had a total of 90 sewage treatment plants. The current daily capacity of sewage disposal has reached 6.74 million tons, he said.

The use of land was reduced to 12 hectares last year from 35 hectares in 2002 for every 100 million added to the GDP, Huang said.

The province still needs to find out effective ways to lower its energy consumption rate as it lacks its own energy resources, said Huang, adding that more than 90 percent of its energy is imported from other provinces and regions of the country.

Editor: Yan